- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus and noted integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom of the Department of Entomology and Nematology received a Lifetime IPM Achievement Award from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR), his colleagues and former graduate students rushed to congratulate him.
Zalom officially retired in 2018 but continues his IPM research and outreach efforts as a recall professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology. His 45-year career includes director of the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years.
The best accolade we've heard came from UC Davis doctoral alumnus Mohammad Amir Aghaee: "Frank Zalom is the Michael Jordan of IPM."
Aghaee posted that on the "Insects & Entomology" section of LinkedIn.
Aghaee, now entomology program leader with California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo, was a top-notch graduate student at UC Davis. He won the 2015 John Henry Comstock Award, the highest graduate student award given by the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America and numerous other honors. (See news story) At the time he received the award, Aghaee was a fifth year Ph.D. candidate working on rice water weevil management in California rice.
Carlos Bográn: "No one more deserving of this recognition! Thank you for sharing, this is very special to many of us that have learned from him and his example of professionalism and grace."
David Bellamy: "Congratulations, Frank. Clearly well deserved..."
Carlos Vargas: You, sir, are a great wealth of knowledge..."
Numerous entomologists and organizations turned to X (formerly Twitter) to congratulate Zalom. UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and former chair of the Department of Entomology, posted a newspaper clipping of Zalom talking to his former student Hannah Burrack, now professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, Michigan State University. The headline: "Separating the Good Bugs from the Bad."
Comments on Facebook included:
Walter Bentley (UC IPM entomologist, emeritus): "Congratulations, Frank. This is a well-deserved honor."
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website chronicled Zalom's achievements in a comprehensive news story. CDPR praised Zalom for “advancing IPM practices in California specialty crops as a preeminent researcher, practitioner and champion of sustainable pest management.”
"Dr. Zalom's work has contributed greatly to advancing safe, effective, and sustainable IPM practices in specialty crops such as almonds, strawberries, tomatoes, and olives,” a CDPR spokesman said. “Through hundreds of presentations and publications, Dr. Zalom has contributed to broad adoption of IPM practices for numerous agricultural pests, resulting in less insecticide use and reduced run-off impacts and high-risk pesticide exposures.”
The news story went on to note that Zalom's career led to his presidency of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA) in 2014, and ESA's highest honor, Honorary Member, in 2021. His peers also elected him Fellow of the ESA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Entomological Society (London), and the California Academy of Sciences.
Among Zalom's many other accomplishments:
- He served as editor-in-chief of ESA's Journal of Economic Entomology from 2018-2022.
- The American Entomologist featured him in a 2023 "legends of entomology" piece titled Blue Collar California.
- He has authored or co-authored 376 journal articles and book chapters. Google Scholar attributes more than 11,000 citations to his papers, and assigns a h-index score of 50 and an i-index score of 207 to these works. (The i-index reflects the number of his papers that have been cited at least 10 times in other research papers.)
- He has delivered more 900 presentations at various clientele meetings in California since 1980.
- He has published well over 400 outreach articles on practical IPM during his 43-year UC career.
- He served as editor-in-chief of ESA's Journal of Economic Entomology from 2018-2022. This 115-year-old publication is the "most cited" journal in entomology, and well over half of the papers originate from outside of the U.S.
- He has participated in various international leadership projects involving IPM. (See more)
Today we're sharing three links to the CDPR's Feb. 29th ceremony, honoring five recipients:
- Full Ceremony: https://youtu.be/XEMKD04bDT4
- Video honoring Frank Zalom: https://youtu.be/oXc8OcQivLI
- Remarks from Assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry: https://youtu.be/o4xnXyPn7e8
Frankly, UC Davis doctoral alumnus Mohammad Amir Aghaee absolutely nailed it:
"Frank Zalom is the Michael Jordan of IPM."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, graduate student in the Larry Godfrey lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the first-place President's Prize in his category for his 10-minute talk on a rice water weevil at the Entomological Society of America's 61st annual meeting, being held Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas.
Graduate student Rosanna Kwok of the Joanna Chiu lab and the Frank Zalom lab received a second place award in the President's Prize competition for her 10-minute talk on the spotted wing drosophila.
Aghaee's topic was "Exploring the Mechanisms of Winter Flooding as a Cultural Control Against Rice Water Weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus."
His abstract: "Rice water weevils (Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus Kuschel) are the primary insect pest in California rice agriculture. They present a challenge for IPM because of their soil dwelling larvae, which prevents the effective use of parasitoids, nematodes and predators. However a possible cultural control method may present a sustainable solution if its mechanism can be explained. Data from the field experiments in the 1990s showed that winter flooding of rice fields to break down post harvest rice straw would result in reduced larval populations in the spring. Studies from the last two years have been exploring the mechanisms behind this decline. Similar results were shown in a greenhouse study in the summer of 2013, with reduced larval counts in treatments with a winter flood compared to treatments without the flood. As part of this study we also examined the addition of rice straw, which nullified the effects of the winter flood. The evidence suggests that use of winter flooding in California will have benefits for growers against rice water weevil, but the mechanism behind it has yet to be determined."
Kwok, who works closely with integrated pest management specialist/professor Zalom; doctoral candidate Kelly Hamby of the Zalom lab; and molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology, discussed "Integrating Circadian Activity and Gene Expression Profiles to Predict Chronotoxicity of Drosophila suzukii Response to Insecticides."
Her abstract:
Native to Southeast Asia, Drosophila suzukii is a recent invader that infests ripe and ripening fruit, leading to significant crop losses. Since current D. suzukii management strategies rely on insecticide usage, and insecticide detoxification gene expression is under circadian regulation in the closely related Drosophila melanogaster, we set out to determine if integrative analysis of daily activity patterns and detoxification gene expression can predict chronotoxicity of D. suzukii to insecticides. Locomotor assays, detoxification gene expression analysis, and acute insecticide contact bioassays were performed under conditions that approximate a typical summer day in Watsonville, California, where D. suzukii was first detected in North America. Summer is also the cropping season, when most insecticide applications occur. We observed that D. suzukii assumed a bimodal activity pattern, with maximum activity occurring at dawn and dusk. Five of the six genes tested exhibited rhythmic expression over a circadian day, with the majority showing peak expression at dawn (ZT0, 6am). We observed significant differences in the chronotoxicity of D. suzukii towards malathion, with highest susceptibility at ZT0 (6am), corresponding to peak expression of cytochrome P450s that may be involved in bioactivation of malathion. High activity levels were not found to consistently correlate with high insecticide susceptibility as initially hypothesized. Chronobiology and chronotoxicity of D. suzukii provide valuable insights for monitoring and control efforts, because insect activity as well as insecticide timing and efficacy are crucial considerations for pest management. However, field research is necessary for extrapolation to agricultural settings.
The first-place President's Prize consists of a one-year free membership in ESA, a $175 cash prize, and a certificate. The second-place winner receives a certificate and a $50 cash prize.
Frank Zalom is the incoming president of the 6500-member ESA and will assume his new duties today (Nov. 13). He will president over the ESA's 62nd annual meeting, to be held next year in Portland, Ore.
Related Link:
UC Davis Pioneering Research on Spotted-Wing Drosophila May Lead to Fewer Insecticide Applications